Art is Hard.

Spawn is back from year one at OCAD and working in the lair this summer. Mom is in the upper studio – the big house. This is the second summer in a row that two artists have worked here. So, for two summers in a row now, if you are near these parts you hear the phrase, ‘Art is hard’. It’s offered as either lament or consolation.

The phrase goes back a few years when female MFA cohorts – part of a solar printing residency in Ireland – entered the women’s washroom to find a young student balling her head off in another student’s arms. The woman with the wet shoulder looked up and said, by way of explanation, ‘Art is hard’ and the phrase kinda’ stuck.

Of course the ‘hard’ bit in this art biz is often the hump you drag your ass over that means the difference between the work being mediocre and the work being great. But all that doesn’t help when you are stuck. And today I am stuck. Stuck with my piece for ‘I, Defined’ which I first decided not to do and then to do and then, well, it needs to be done by the end of the week and I am considering a braver piece all together which is scary on a number of levels.